


To love another person

by haggarrrd



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-04
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 11:59:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1119575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haggarrrd/pseuds/haggarrrd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Grantaire had escaped his past by fleeing across the sea and setting up a brand new life in a new country, he hadn't expected to fall in love with a brilliant blond who definitely seemed to hate his very existence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. There's No Cure Like Travel

The decision to leave Finland was one that had come very easily to Grantaire; there had been no complex debate of whether or not it was worth leaving everything behind, because there had been nothing to leave behind. He hoisted the strap of the old, tattered back pack that contained his worldly posession onto his shoulder and slammed the door of the taxi that had delivered him, then looked up at the white building that stood before him. His future began behind the large, wooden door, dividing him from the ghosts that haunted him back home, and the future that held so much potential for him. He shook his head, distilling the ghosts that took permanent home there. They couldn’t chase him all the way across the ocean.

With a deep breath, he shoved the door to the B & B out of his way and stepped into the reception area, his vibrant blue eyes drinking in the details. It was small, yet homely. The walls were painted in a powder blue and the floor, wooden, was concealed by a bright patterned rug. Towards the far end of the room, shelves lay with trinkets upon them, and the rest of the walls were covered with pictures hanging in mismatched frames. Grantaire looked at a few, then finally noticed the only other person in the room; a strawberry blond, lanky receptionist stood behind an old, oak desk. He smiled towards the new man; his long hair braided and pulled over one shoulder, dressed in black jeans and a faded floral shirt.

“Hello, welcome to the Amber House B & B.” The man smiled, dimples visible on his cheeks. “My name’s Jehan, how can I help you today?”

“I have uh, an reservation?” Grantaire stepped up to the desk, suddenly very aware of the flaws in his English. He was by no means bad at English, but nor was he perfect at it, and he had a thick accent that often twisted and distorted his words. “My name is Zacharie Grantaire.”

“Just give me a second,” the man behind the desk said, then began tapping away at the keys of his computer, a frown of concentration appearing between his eyebrows. He smiled when he looked up again, “that’s right here. You’re booked in to stay in room 3, right up the stairs, for three weeks. Your name’s French, right?”

“Uhm, yes,” His name was French, but he had never been to France and couldn’t speak a word of French either, probably considering the fact that his father had died when he was four, and he could barely even remember the man let alone what he had said to him. “My father, he was from there but I live with my mother in Finland when I was teenager.”

“That’s pretty cool,” Awe swarmed the man’s voice, his face full of interest. Above his head, Grantaire could see Jehan in one of the picture frames, his grin wide and his arm wrapped around a copper haired man who looked equally as happy, as if whatever was happening at that moment was the greatest thing to have ever occurred. “What brings you to England then, business or pleasure?”

Ghosts, Grantaire wanted to say. His past was haunting him and driving him insane and he just needed to get away from it. He shrugged and said quietly, “I have no brother or sister and my mother and father die a few years ago, so I decide to come here and find a job.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Jehan’s voice took on such a note of sadness at the mention of Grantaire’s orphan status, that the dark haired man had no trouble believing him. “But I’m glad that you’re here anyway, I think you’ll love it over here, I’ve always wanted to move to another country but I doubt that I ever will. Too attached, you know? What kind of things do you like to do?”

He hadn’t been doing much of anything recently. He went to work in the bar a couple of streets over from where he was crashing on Bahorel’s couch, then spent the majority of his wages on beer or vodka or whatever else he could afford to keep the memories at bay. But he couldn’t exactly say that to Jehan, who he had only just met and he pretty much liked so far, so instead he said, “I like art, maybe one day I will study it.”

“There’s a pretty good community centre in town that does art classes,” Jehan began searching in one of the draws in the desk, his fingers flicking through glossy pieces of paper. “I usually don’t bother handing these out because most of the places are so touristy no one wants to visit them anyway, but I go to the centre to take writing classes and it’s actually really good. Ah-ha, here it is! You should try it out some time; they’re really cheap and professional.”

Grantaire looked at the pamphlet; Bahorel and Feuilly had tried endlessly to get him back into art or dancing, but he had scoffed off their suggestions as soon as they were out of their mouths. But that was back in the dark days. He was getting better, if he wasn’t he never would have been able to gather up the energy to move to a brand new country. So maybe he should try it, because he couldn’t go on living as he had been back in Finland, where depression and loss weighed upon him as if he were carrying the entire world around on his shoulders. He flicked through the pamphlet, looking through all of different classes. There were at least three that caught his interest, and then one that he would suggest to Feuilly when he finally made it across—including the English language class.

“Thank you,” Grantaire said, never looking up from the pamphlet. He pointed to the map on the back of the pamphlet, “where are we in this?”

Jehan took the paper from his hands, then grabbed a red marker and circled one of the side streets, a little further away from the town centre than Grantaire had expected. “We’re right here, it only takes fifteen minutes to walk, or there’s a bus that’s right outside that comes once an hour if you don’t fancy the walk. Do you want a map of the town? It’ll probably help you out a lot at first.”

Grantaire nodded; he was lousy with directions, and even with the map he was likely to end up getting lost at least three times, but it would help to have at least some sense of direction.

“You probably want to unpack now, but if you get bored later and you wanna come talk, I’m here until midnight!” Jehan chirped, and Grantaire found it impossible not to smile back at him. He assured him that he would, because he really hated being alone at night sometimes and without Bahorel there to drink with him, he was likely to get frustrated. He tightened his grip on his backpack, pamphlet and map in the other hand, then headed upstairs in the direction that Jehan had pointed him in, towards the place that would act as his home for the foreseeable future. 

~~~

He spent the majority of the evening talking to Jehan, until the lanky man clocked off and switched shifts with a freckled man named Marius. Marius seemed nice enough, but Grantaire only spent a grand total of four minutes talking to him before heading up to his room and promptly passing out for ten hours. He talked to Marius a little more when he went down for breakfast the next morning, and then disappeared into town when the next receptionist took over. He fell into a comfortable pattern of doing so over the three days that followed his arrival; talking to Jehan, small talk with Marius, then exploring town. 

But he couldn't continue that way forever, because he was getting incredibly bored of having nothing to do. Back home he at least had the bar to work at. He needed a job and desperately so because he couldn't live off of what little he had brought over with him forever. He said as much to Jehan one evening, while he sat on the counter cross legged and the poet scribbled away on a piece of paper.

"You could always just work here, you know?" He said off handily, never taking his eyes off of the words he was scratching onto the paper.

Grantaire scoffed and rolled his eyes, "I do not think I'd be good at your job. I am not best at English." 

"You're not bad at it," Jehan laughed, finally looking up and setting his pen down carefully. "But that's not what I'm talking about, we already have three receptionists so we don't need any more right now. But we do have an opening in house keeping. It's basic wage, just cleaning rooms and making sure that the place is tidy, but it's a job and it's yours if you want it. I know it's not the most glamorous job but at least it's something, right?"

Grantaire had assumed that he would get a job in a McDonald's somewhere, flipping burgers where he didn't have to have any form of customer interaction. He could deal with that, and he could definitely deal with scrubbing toilets and making beds so long as he made enough money to survive and find a more permanent home that the B & B he was currently residing in. He grinned widely back at the poet, "you could do that?"

"Course I can, I'm good friends with the owner." Jehan winked, then pointed to one of the pictures on the wall behind the reception desk; the same one that Grantaire had noticed when he had been checking in, where Jehan was hugging the man with copper hair. "Speaking of friends, what are you doing tonight? Not to be blunt, but I've noticed that you spend most of your evenings on here talking to me, which I'm totally not complaining about, but it must get a little monotonous for you. Anyway, a few of my friends are going to a cafe we like later on this evening, would you maybe want to come along?"

He didn't. It wasn't anything personal, social events just weren't his kind of thing any more. Back home he tended to just get drunk in Bahorel and Feuilly's basement while they eat pizza and watched bad movies or played video games. Other than that he kept to himself these days; things had been different before everything happened. But he had promised himself that he'd try harder to be more social if he ever did make the big move across the sea and now that he had, he wasn't going to let himself down. He smiled and nodded, "sure, if your friends will not mind." 

"They won't, I actually told them about you and they want to meet you." 

Grantaire couldn't imagine Jehan talking about him to his friends, although he figured that the next time he spoke to either Bahorel or Feuilly he would probably spend a considerable amount of time talking about the bright young poet.

"Okay," Grantaire smiled. "When do we leave?"


	2. There are wounds that are not meant to heal

_Four years ago_

_"Are you crazy?!" Grantaire roared, storming into the small room that his boyfriend had been assigned. He didn't care that he was being loud and that it was the middle of the night; he didn't care that people were giving him dirty looks and were shushing him, and he definitely didn't care that he was disturbing other people._

_He had been woken up at 4am by one of Jarno's friends, who was drunk and frantic, demanding that the seventeen year old get to the hospital immediately. Apparently, Jarno decided that it would be hilarious if he drank the majority of a bottle of Jack Daniels, and then tried to surf on the back of his best friend's car while the other man was going full speed. The snow, his friend Hannu had claimed, was supposed to break his fall. But obviously, it didn't work that way, which led to Jarno ending up in the back of an ambulance, and Grantaire stealing his mom's car keys to rush over and make sure that he was okay._

_He focused his blue eyes on the man in the bed, observing the tight white bandage that was wrapped around his head and the hard encasing of plaster that was wrapped around his right wrist and left leg. "Are you completely out of your mind?! Wait no, don't answer that, you obviously are! What the hell were you thinking? You could've gotten yourself killed! You're lucky that a few broken bones and a concussion is all that you got! I can't believe you, I really can't believe you!"_

_"Grantaire, calm down," Jarno soothed the frantic man, holding out his good hand, beckoning him over. Grantaire oblidged, his face still set in an angry state of shock. "Seriously, calm down, I'm okay see? I'm here, I'm okay. I'm sorry, I know it was stupid, but I'm here, it's okay."_

_"Do you realise how scared I was when Hannu phoned me?" Grantaire murmured, his voice cracking as moisture threatened at his waterline. His heart had stopped the moment that Hannu had mentioned the world hospital, paralysed by a fear that made his chest feel tight. "He said that you weren't breathing, I thought you were dead. I thought I'd never see you again."_

_I know, I'm sorry. I love you."_

In Finland, Grantaire had dated a guy called Jarno. Bahorel introduced them at a bar when they were sixteen, and still had to use their fake IDs to get into places. Jarno was two years older, just like Feuilly, and was the happiest person he had ever met; he spent the entire night at the bar laughing and telling ridiculous jokes, and Grantaire had been enchanted by him in an instant. He was drawn in by the crazy stories the older man told, and the love that he had for life, and he was completely mesmirised by his shimmering blond hair, which fell straight down to rest upon his shoulders, which only added to his beauty. After a few drinks, Grantaire leaned into Feuilly and told him that he would sell his soul to spend the rest of his life next to that man. And so, Bahorel introduced them.

To his surprise, and delight, Jarno liked him too, unconcerned by the dark haired teen's lack of worldly experience, and started taking him on dates. His mother didn't approve, as strict and old fashioned as she was, because Jarno had a reputation for being reckless and of course she knew it; there wasn't a thing in Siuntio that woman hadn't known. But Grantaire had been been having the time of his life, and he had never felt more alive than he did when he was with Jarno. He was happy, so his mother was happy, and it proved rather difficult to hate Jarno anyway.

Things with Jarno definitely perfect, although they had seemed that way for a while. The blond man was as stupid and reckless as the rumours said he was, if not more, which led to more than a couple of hospital visits, but Grantaire didn't care. He was young and in love and he often had to act as though he were the older one in the relationship, because Jarno could be childish in an incredibly annoying manner on many occasions. But he was kind, and gentle, and even tender when they argued, so Grantaire felt as though he was the luckiest man in the world. His boyfriend was an idiot, but they loved each other and he supposed that was all that mattered. Until it was all over, and Grantaire felt as though a part of him had been stolen.

 

He shook his head, shaking away the thoughts of the bar that started everything and his life back home, or what little of it there was left. He looked around the cafe that he currently found himself in, and the table surrounded by three of Jehan's friends, whom they were headed towards.

"This is Grantaire," Jehan smiled widely, gesturing to the dark haired man, then to each of his three friends in turn. They had been talking animatedly between themselves until Jehan had approached, Grantaire by his side, but now all three sets of eyes were focused on him. One in particular caught his interest more than the others; he was sat between the two dark haired men, and his hair was the exact same colour as Jarno's, and had that same glimmer to it, except his was longer and it curled around in perfect ringlets. He didn't really look anything like Jarno; Jarno had been fair skinned with piercing blue eyes, and them man before him was tanned with vibrant brown irises, but looking at him stirred up a feeling within him that reminded him of the night he met the blond Finn. He allowed himself to gawk for a moment, then quickly sat down in the seat beside Jehan.

"This is my boyfriend, Courfeyrac." Jehan gestured towards the copper haired man that Grantaire recognised from multiple pictures in the B & B. "He owns the B & B... well, his parents own it but ever since he left university he started running it so they could move to Florida. And this is Combeferre, he's studying medicine with our other friend Joly but he's on a date with his boyfriend Bossuet tonight. And last but not least, this is Enjolras. He's studying to become a lawyer."

"It's nice to meet you," Grantaire looked at the three men, smiling at each in turn, lingering for a moment when he locked eyes with Enjolras. Suddenly, he was sixteen years old again, back in the bar in Siuntio, locking eyes with another blond. He had no idea what it was about the man before him, but he was enthralled, just as he had been all those years ago. He took a deep breath; he wasn't going to go there again. He wasn't here to fall in love and fawn over pretty blondes with deep brown eyes... Bahorel would call him an idiot if he could hear what he was thinking right now.

“What brings you to England, then?” The second one asked… Combeferre, Grantaire reminded himself. The man had a pleasant enough face, his grey eyes concealed behind thick black rimmed glasses, but they creased up in the corners whenever he smiled, which gave off the impression that he spent a lot of his time smiling. “Do you have family over here?”

“Uhm, no, no family.” Should he answer honestly, Grantaire would have said that he was running away from his past; he was trying to forget, and being at home where memories swarmed him at every turn didn’t help at all. But he hadn’t even told Bahorel and Feuilly the true reasons as to why he left, so he definitely wasn’t going to tell four strangers. “I just decide that I want to experience more than what is in Finland. Feuilly spoke about America but I did not want to be so far from home.”

“What did you do over there?” Grantaire turned his eyes towards the blond who was now addressing him, his lips pursed and his eyes critical but his face neutral, as if this conversation were the least of his concerns.

He hadn’t been doing a whole lot by the time he left, and that was why the decision to leave had been so easy. For a while he went to university, studied dance and then took art classes in the evenings, but that was before everything went wrong. Before things with Jarno ripped his life apart and he dropped out of school. But he wouldn’t tell them that; he didn’t even know the blond, who was staring at him as if he would tare him to shreds if his answer was wrong. So he smiled, omitting the last ten months, and said, “I studied dance and art, and worked in a bar on weekends. Nothing very fun.”

“Are you kidding? Dance sounds like such a fun subject to study. I always wanted to dance but I have two left feet.” Courfeyrac laughed, his hand tangled together with Jehan’s under the table. Grantaire agreed, dancing was fun; for a long time it had been his favourite thing to do, but when the cloud of depression took over his mind and made his limbs feel heavy, it felt like too much effort to get up and brush his teeth, never mind warm up then throw his own body through the air. He had no doubt that he could pick it up again, dancing was second nature to him, but the desire wasn’t there anymore, replaced by a laziness and lack of passion. Art he was still in love with; even in his darkest days his reverence towards art hadn’t dwindled. He could channel anything he wanted into his art; all those impossible feelings that he couldn’t form into words came to life on the pages of his sketchpad.

“Not everybody goes to university for fun, Courfeyrac. Some of us actually go to get an education.” Enjolras quipped, his critical eyes averted from Grantaire’s face, and directed towards the copper haired boy. Grantaire wondered how he didn’t flinch away from the gaze, as harsh as it was; he didn’t understand what his problem was; in the five minutes that he had been sat with him, he didn’t think that he had heard the blond say anything positive, and he just looked all around bored, as if being there was a waste of his time. But still, Grantaire was enthralled by him. He wanted to draw him from every angle possible.

He watched as the two men dove into a debate, Courfeyrac (who he discovered studied business and events management at university, and was a couple of years older than everybody else) launched into an animated speech about why people should go to university to have fun, and for the experience of it, even if they had no desire to pursue a career in whatever they were studying. Enjolras, in return, looked as though he had been slapped when the older man said that, and waded into the debate with points left right and centre about how people like that were a waste of time and money. Grantaire personally agreed with Courfeyrac, but it wasn’t until Enjolras said that people who went the university for ‘the experience’ were almost as bad as drop outs that Grantaire weighed in.

“That’s not fair,” He blurted before he even thought about the fact that he didn’t know this man and probably shouldn’t be arguing with him. “You don’t know someone’s reason for dropping out. What gives you the right to judge a person’s choice?”

“I’m guessing you’re a drop out then?” Enjolras countered, his arms folded tightly across his chest and one perfectly arched eyebrow raised critically. Annoyance stirred in Grantaire’s chest, and he found himself ultimately disliking this beautiful boy who was the first person to have him interested in anything for so long.

“And so what if I am?”

“You wasted valuable time that could have been given to another student, and you took up a place on a course that could have been given to someone with dedication.” Enjolras sneered, and even though he was yelling at him, Grantaire found himself drawn to what the man was saying; he spoke with so much confidence and conviction that Grantaire was eager to hear more, even if it was at his own demise. “Lazy people drop out of university. People with no ambitions or true desire to go anywhere with their lives. Most drop outs are stoners or alcoholics, they don’t deserve to go to university if they’re just going to waste everybody’s time.”

Grantaire recoiled as if he had been stuck. He was aware that people thought he dropped out of university because he lacked the ambition and drive to accomplish anything, but no one had ever said it to him so directly before, and it hurt to hear it aloud. He pushed away from the table, eyes narrowed and spat, “you have no right to judge anybody.”

He spun on his heel and marched out of the bar, hoping that he could still find his way back to the B & B without Jehan there to guide him. He wrapped his arms around his torso, his mind going over what had just happened. He assumed that Enjolras didn’t understand people; he seemed like he’d led a pretty sheltered life, and Grantaire had learnt that those kind of people never understood. He figured that he had probably never been in love either, and had never felt loss and the depression that comes along with it, so Enjolras couldn’t possibly understand how it felt, or how hard it had been for Grantaire to simply be alive back in those days, never mind show up for class and learn his routine.

“Grantaire wait!” He was yanked out of his thoughts by Jehan’s voice, tender as he ran to catch up to the fleeing artist. Grantaire stopped, waiting for him, and when Jehan reached him his face was apologetic, “I’m sorry about Enjolras, he really doesn’t mean to be so harsh, he just don’t think before he speaks and Courfeyrac has a way of winding him up, it really wasn’t anything personal against you, I promise.

“It’s fine, really.” Grantaire smiled. “I should not have antagonised him, I’m sorry for disrupting your night, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He turned to continue the way he had been going, eager now to be home so that he could Skype Feuilly and tell him about the rude blond that was also possibly the most intriguing man he had ever come across. Jehan caught up with him and weave their arms together, smiling down at the dark haired man, “well Combeferre is going to spend the rest of the night yelling at Enjolras for being rude, and telling Courfeyrac that he needs to stop trying to provoke him. And I’m too mad at Enjolras to want to spend time with him, so I figured we could go get a pizza from that place I told you about and go watch movies at my flat. You can stay there tonight, if you want.”

Had it been anyone else, Grantaire would have politely declined, worried that he was being pitied, but with Jehan he never had any trouble doubting the man’s sincerity; he was offering to spend time with him, because he genuinely wanted to. Grantaire realised then and there that he loved Jehan.

~~

Jehan’s flat was a direct reflection of the man himself; a small, homely ground floor flat, with two bedrooms and a bathroom sandwiched in between. In the centre of the room, there was a large, plush couch with thick, brightly coloured blankets thrown across the back; Grantaire could just imagine curling up at one end and falling asleep, with the fire roaring to one side and the TV flickering to the other. The coffee table was blanketed with pieces of paper of varying sizes, all of them scribbled across in Jehan’s handwriting, which just looked like a very beautiful form of calligraphy. The walls of the lounge, just like those in the reception of the B & B, were lined with pictures of smiling faces; he spotted Jehan and Courfeyrac, then one of Enjolras frowning, next to one where he was smiling widely. Even when he was furious with the man, Grantaire couldn’t help but think of how beautiful Enjolras looked when he smiled.

“Excuse the mess,” Jehan sang and flopped down onto the sofa, then patted the seat next to him and promptly curled up to the dark haired man as soon as he sat down. “I hope you don’t let Enjolras give you a bad impression of all of us. He’s usually not that bad, I’m sure he’ll apologise to you the next time he sees you.”

Grantaire very much doubted it; Enjolras didn’t seem the type to apologise. But then again, he didn’t even really know him. Did he even want to know him? The cautious part of his brain told him to stay away—the last time he had been this drawn in by someone, it had been Jarno, and that had ended spectacularly bad. Not that he assumed that Enjolras would even be interested in him, or was even gay, but he didn’t want to take that chance.

“Älä huoli,” He smiled.

“What does that mean?” Jehan beamed, enthralled as he always was by the things that he didn’t know.

“It means do not worry.” Grantaire translated; no, Jehan definitely shouldn’t worry, but Grantaire couldn’t displace the gnawing feeling in his chest.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not actually Finnish, so I'll be relying on Google translate and my very, very limited Finnish vocabulary to get through this.
> 
> Rewrite of my story Anything Goes.
> 
> Please leave comments, I'd love to know your thoughts! :)


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